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00:00Women who change the world.
00:30The dance is a poem of which each movement is a word, Mata Hari.
00:37Mata Hari was born Margaretha Gertrude Zell in Leuwarden, Netherlands, on August 7, 1876,
00:46to Father Adam Zell, a hat merchant who went bankrupt due to bad investments,
00:51and Mother Anchi Zell, who fell ill and died when Mata Hari was 15 years old.
00:57Following her mother's death, Mata Hari and her three brothers were split up and sent to live with various relatives.
01:04At an early age, Mata Hari decided that sexuality was her ticket in life.
01:10In the mid-1890s, she boldly answered a newspaper ad seeking a bride for Rudolph MacLeod,
01:16mustachioed military captain based in the Dutch East Indies.
01:21Despite a 21-year age difference, they wed on July 11, 1895, when Mata Hari was just shy of 19.
01:30During their rocky nine-year marriage, Mata Hari gave birth to two children, a daughter and a son.
01:37By the early 1900s, Mata Hari's marriage had deteriorated.
01:42Her husband fled with their daughter, and Mata Hari moved to Paris.
01:46There, she became the mistress of a French diplomat who helped her hatch the idea of supporting herself as a dancer.
01:54All things oriental were the fad in the Paris of 1905.
01:59The time seemed ripe for Mata Hari's exotic looks and the temple dance she created
02:04by drawing on cultural and religious symbolism, and that she had picked up in the Indies.
02:09Completing her dramatic transformation from military wife to siren of the East,
02:14she coined her stage name Mata Hari, which means Eye of the Day in Indonesian dialect.
02:22Before long, however, Mata Hari's cavalier travels and liaisons attracted attention from British and French intelligence,
02:29who put her under surveillance.
02:31Now, nearing 40, Mata Hari fell in love with the 21-year-old Russian captain.
02:36He was sent to the front, where an injury left him blind in one eye.
02:40Mata Hari accepted a lucrative assignment to spy for France from George Ledoux, an army captain,
02:46who assumed her courtesan contacts would be of use to French intelligence.
02:50Mata Hari later insisted that she planned to use her connections to seduce her way into the German High Command,
02:56get secrets, and hand them over to the French, but she never got that far.
03:00She met a German attache and began tossing him bits of gossip, hoping to get some valuable information in return.
03:06Instead, she got named as a German spy in communiques he sent to Berlin, which were promptly intercepted by the French.
03:13During lengthy interrogations by Captain Pierre Beauchardon, Mata Hari, who had long lived a fabricated life,
03:20embellishing both rearing and resume, bungled, and facts about her whereabouts and activities.
03:25Eventually, she dropped a bombshell confession.
03:28Mata Hari's trial came at a time when the Allies were failing to beat back German advances.
03:33Real or imagined spies were convenient scapegoats for explaining military losses, and Mata Hari's arrest was one of many.
03:41Her chief foil, Captain George Ledoux, made sure the evidence against her was constructed in the most damning way,
03:48by some accounts even tampering with it to implicate her more deeply.
03:52So, when Mata Hari admitted that a German officer paid her for sexual favors, prosecutors depicted it as espionage money.
04:00Additionally, currency she claimed was a regular stipend from a Dutch baron was portrayed in court as coming from German spymasters.
04:08That amorous Dutch baron, who could have shed light on the truth, was never called to testify.
04:13Nor was Mata Hari's maid, who acted as an intermediary for the baron's payments.
04:19Mata Hari's morals conspired against her as well.
04:22Mata Hari was executed by a firing squad on October 15, 1917.
04:27Dressed in a blue coat, accented by a tri-corner hat, she had arrived at the Paris execution site with the minister and two nuns,
04:35and, after bidding them farewell, walked briskly to the designated spot.
04:39She then turned to face the firing squad, waved away her blindfold, and blew the soldiers a kiss.
04:45Mystery continues to surround Mata Hari's life and alleged double agency, and her story has become a legend that still piques curiosity.
04:56Women Who Changed the World
04:58Dressed in a�
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